As President, Gary Johnson Would Consider Pardoning Edward Snowden

'I don't want to see him in prison.'

Earlier in the week, former Attorney General Eric Holder acknowledged that Edward Snowden had performed a "public service" by revealing to Americans that their private phone records were being gathered and stored by the National Security Agency (NSA). He nevertheless thinks Snowden should face a trial.

Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson has other ideas. He told Newsmax TV he would consider pardoning Snowden, who faces espionage charges for his information leaks:

"This is someone who has divulged information that we would not know about currently — and that's the United States government spying on all of us as U.S. citizens," Johnson, 63, the former Republican governor of New Mexico, told "The Hard Line" host John Bachman. "I don't want to see him in prison."

Let's remind everybody of the positions of our so-much-more-serious major party candidates. Donald Trump has called Snowden a traitor, a word used by many other Republicans as well, so it's not a case of Trump being Trump.

Hillary Clinton is hardly better. She thinks Snowden should stand trial and has attempted to claim that Snowden could have availed himself of whistleblower protections rather than run away and released the information on his own. The problem with her argument is that it's simply not true.

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Hillary Clinton is hardly better. She thinks Snowden should stand trial and has attempted to claim that Snowden could have availed himself of whistleblower protections rather than run away and released the information on his own.

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams asked Snowden, “When the president and others have made the point that you should have gone through channels, become a whistleblower and not pursued the route you did, what’s your response?”

“I actually did go through channels and that is documented,” Snowden answered. “The NSA has records. They have copies of emails right now to their Office of General Counsel, to their oversight and compliance folks, from me raising concerns about the NSA’s interpretations of its legal authorities.”

“Now, I had raised these complaints not just officially in writing through email to these offices and these individuals but to my supervisors, to my colleagues in more than one office,” Snowden added. He said he had gone through channels at Fort Meade and in Hawaii.

Or, you know, we could hold the government responsible for doing illegal shit and mandate that not only is it not a crime to report government wrongdoing but an obligation to do so and anyone with knowledge and failing to do so will be nailed to a cross and fucking flayed.

“I will pardon Edward Snowden, because I believe his action was in the great tradition of civil disobedience, of breaking the law for a greater good.

The only reason I would not pardon him, is if our intelligence and law enforcement agencies provide me with credible evidence that he was acting as an agent of another nation when he was gathering and leaking the information. In which case, I will charge him with treason.”

It is interesting how doctrinaire libertarians are eager and willing to repeal laws regulating narcotics and other now “illegal drugs”, but are perfectly content to allow doctors to retain their government enforced legal monopoly over medical drugs. Something that puts tens of thousands of dollars into the pockets of doctors and takes money out of their patient’s pockets in order to obtain “permission” to purchase medical drugs, most of which are not subject to abuse and perfectly safe it taken according to the instructions provided with the drug in question.

It is interesting how doctrinaire libertarians are eager and willing to repeal laws regulating narcotics and other now “illegal drugs”, but are perfectly content to allow doctors to retain their government enforced legal monopoly